Restaurant review: Island Cafe & Grill

I hope as the Island Cafe & Grill takes hold, the menu will include more of the owners’ native Jamaican cuisine. I think it, coupled with the fresh local ingredients, could be a strong selling point.

I am sitting here writing about lunch while thinking about breakfast.

Island Cafe & Grill in Hyannis will do that to you.

The restaurant has more than a dozen lunch entrees and nearly two dozen choices for breakfast. The day we visited, the owners were brainstorming ideas for new dishes with someone at the counter. Perhaps an egg nestled in pulled pork? Sounds promising.

That creative drive to experiment, coupled with the owners’ commitment to using local ingredients and the prompt, friendly service, makes this five-month-old restaurant a place to visit and watch.

You may be able to find Island Cafe & Grill more easily by knowing that the spot was formerly a Subway sandwich shop, but you certainly wouldn’t know that by stepping inside. The remodel is lovely: To the left is a counter, with the kitchen beyond that; to the right, there’s a room of neat and highly polished wood tables, set with black place mats and good-quality paper napkins.

The atmosphere felt more like a bistro than a breakfast-and-lunch shop. When we asked the restaurant’s co-owner if there were plans to serve dinner eventually, she said they were hoping to get a liquor license first.

We stopped in at about 2 p.m. for a late lunch and settled into a table with a chair on one side and an upholstered-bench seat on the other. The room was sparkling clean and surprisingly quiet, free of outside noise even though it borders busy Route 28 and the Barnstable Municipal Airport is nearby. (Parking out front is fine, but backing onto Route 28 as we left was a bit daunting.)

For lunch, my friend Robin started with a small farmer-greens salad ($3.50), a blend of iceberg and romaine lettuce with carrots and red onion. The ingredients were all fresh and cold. I had a cup of clam chowder ($5.25), which was thick, creamy and studded with tender clams and potatoes. The flavor was good, but mild, without a strong brininess.

I ordered the Island Cafe Signature Burger ($10.99), which came on a grilled roll with lettuce, tomato, red onion, applewood-smoked bacon, and slices of ripe, creamy avocado standing in for the mayonnaise.

The ¼-inch-thick burger was pre-formed and cooked longer than the medium-rare I had ordered (there was no pink showing), but the flavor was amazing. Every bite sent warm, fragrant juice running down my hands. The outside of the burger was nicely charred.

The fries that came with my burger and Robin’s Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wrap ($9.99) were fine, but you could tell they had been frozen by the light coating on the outside. (Others have said the fried-fresh potatoes served with breakfasts are crispy and well-seasoned so I’m looking forward to trying those.)

After our server told Robin the jerk seasoning was “a little spicy,” Robin bailed and went with the plain grilled chicken on her wrap. When I asked how the jerk seasoning was applied, the server said the chicken got a dry-rub and was then topped with jerk sauce. I asked if we could try the sauce on the side and she readily agreed.

Robin thought it was a bit spicy, but I loved it. The sauce had that deep smokiness of Southern barbecue with a thin line of fiery spice snaking through it. I’m not surprised that the cafe’s BBQ jerk chicken wings sell out some days. There is also a Jamaican jerk chicken entree, served with plantain, rice and peas.

I hope as the Island Cafe & Grill takes hold, the menu will include more of the owners’ native Jamaican cuisine. I think it, coupled with the fresh local ingredients, could be a strong selling point.